Council of the EU Mandatory Rotation Rule for Credit Rating Agencies

On May 21, the Council of the European Union agreed on a draft proposal that would introduce a mandatory rotation rule requiring issuers who pay credit rating agencies to rate their structured finance products with underlying resecuritized assets to switch to a different credit rating agency every four years. The proposal would also require issuers to engage at least two different credit rating agencies to rate structured finance products. The mandatory rotation would not apply for structured finance products rated by small credit rating agencies, or to issuers employing at least four credit rating agencies each rating over 10% of the total number of outstanding rated structured finance products.  EU Release.